Figuring how to make a program for mentally ill children financially sustainable was the responsibility of a volunteer governance committee Cirilo "Chilo" Madrid had belonged to since the Border Children's Mental Health Collaborative started in 2002, a witness said in court Monday.

Instead, he and an associate, Ruben "Sonny" Garcia, figured out a way to give the job to Madrid through another company and avoid being detected in a conflict of interest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden said. Madrid ended up producing a 20-page report for $100,000 that he plagiarized from the Internet, Fielden said.

A jury was selected, opening statements were given and testimony began Monday in Madrid's case. He faces three felony counts, including theft or embezzlement of federal funds and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

He was indicted in December 2011 along with Garcia on charges that they bribed former County Judge Dolores Briones $24,000 to support a contract between the Border Children's Mental Health Collaborative and Garcia's company, LKG Enterprises Inc.

Garcia pleaded guilty this summer to not providing the services his company was paid $550,000 to perform. Briones pleaded guilty in a separate proceeding days before Madrid and Garcia were indicted.

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Madrid's attorney, Leon Schydlower, admonished the six-man, six-woman jury to consider all the evidence in the case before coming to any conclusions. He implied that Madrid wouldn't have gone to trial if he didn't believe he had a case.

"If they've got the checks and they've got two individuals who have already pled guilty, what are we doing here?" Schydlower asked. "There's got to be more."

In a sworn deposition from 2010, Madrid said the only reason he got involved in writing a sustainabilty plan for the collaborative in 2005 and 2006 was that he was one of only two men in El Paso qualified to write one and the other was sick. Madrid said he desperately wanted to save the collaborative, which was meant to bring home children housed at residential facilities far outside El Paso County.

But making the program sustainable was the job of the collaborative's governance committee, Rosemary Neill, El Paso County's director of family and community services, testified Monday.

Neill served with Madrid on the governance team, which was headed by former 65th District Court Judge Alfredo Chavez. Briones and Chavez shared authority over the collaborative.

The governance team had a hard time figuring out how to make the collaborative, which received $9.3 million in federal funds, sustainable, Neill said. The team had falsely assumed that it could claim state savings from bringing home children as a local match, Neill said.

In court Monday, Schydlower exhibited a July 2005 letter to Chavez from the county auditor's office. It said the collaborative would soon have to close its doors if it didn't straighten out its finances.

Around the same time, Chavez ordered the staff of the collaborative to give Madrid access to the program's financial records, Fielden said.

Chavez criticized the company that held the contract to evaluate the collaborative, TriWest Group, because it hadn't produced a sustainability plan, Neill said.

She and others told Chavez that such a plan was the responsibility of the governing board -- not the evaluator.

"He ignored our explanation and he continued to be critical of TriWest because they weren't doing a sustainability plan for us," Neill said.

In late 2005, the county fired TriWest and hired Garcia's company, LKG, to evaluate the collaborative and produce a sustainability plan. LKG was paid $50,000 a month -- twice what TriWest was paid -- for its services.

Garcia farmed out the sustainability plan to a company called Introspectives Inc., which was owned by Jose Soria, who worked for Madrid at Aliviane Inc., the nonprofit Madrid ran. Introspectives hired Madrid.

In his deposition, Madrid said he took on the job because Soria was too sick to do it. But Fielden, the prosecutor, said Madrid couldn't openly contract to do the sustainability report at the same time he was on the collaborative's governing board.

"It would be a conflict of interest," she said.

The trial is likely to continue through the rest of the week. Among the witnesses yet to be called are Garcia, Briones and Bob Jones, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence on a separate corruption conviction.